This is the place to post general updates about the things you and your unschooler(s) are doing, as well as to muse about current issues and frustrations, to celebrate successes and so on. You can post an overview of what's been happening recently, do some pondering about where things are going, or just give us a "day in the life" snapshot. These threads have grown organically into a monthly tradition around here. Pretty much anything goes, and you're welcome to post more than once or to respond to what others have written.

I know my 17yo ds is in school full-time, and has been for the past 18 months, but this really is an unschooling post about him.

His school insists that as part of their "Career and Personal Planning" course required in the last year of high school students do three separate weeks of job-shadowing or another form of career exploration. During the school year, thirty hours for each experience. My ds is pretty hesitant about new adventures and new people, so it was hard to get him to choose something and greet the prospect with optimism and enthusiasm. I wrote in another thread somewhere about how when he was 10 or 11 I dragged him to aikido the first couple of times over his tears of protest. He's still like that, temperamentally at least: it takes him a while to acclimatize to new situations.

He's a computer guy. One of his previous weeks was just an intense week of computer hardware and software maintenance that he did alongside and adult friend he had known for a while and had been volunteering with on a community access computer project for a couple of years already. His next was to audit classes in Digital Media and Design at a nearby post-secondary community college. He knew a bunch of students in the related Digital Music Production program, and it was just a case of going to school (without performance expectations, though he did do some stellar work while he was there) alongside a bunch of kids a couple of years older, so that wasn't too scary.

Then we found this guy who does web design from home, lives half an hour from us. We set up a week-long "job-shadow" experience. My ds was really stressed about it, but I had a really good feeling about it, partly because if what I already knew through the grapevine about this guy, and partly because of the lengthy and enthusiastic phone call they had together the day before. Ds was supposed to bring his viola with its transducer and octave pedal in case they got a chance to try out some music together.

I dropped him off at 9, and returned to pick him up at 4. Ds had, with A's guidance, already purchased an internet domain, arranged hosting, done a clean WordPress install, chosen and edited a template, begun adding content, learned the basics of CSS scripting, done some banner photography and image editing, and then spent two hours learning to improvise, and they had put this up on SoundCloud.

And that was just the first day.

A. got him up to speed with programming environments he recommended he try out, the business end of freelance web design, where the costs lie, took him to meet clients, had him work on logo design projects, they talked about computer and technology careers and the way people tend to drift into this category or that, and what skills sets are particularly valued in combination with others. He gave him licensed (extra bundled) copies of expensive software, helped him finally configure his Audio Keystation (keyboard) properly, they went out to cafés to meet with partners and clients, they went for walks and photography expeditions, helped out at a community computer access hub, jammed late into the night after "work" morphed into music, and ate pizza.

This past week has been so much more valuable to my ds than anything he learned in his (admittedly short) school career. Not only did he pick up a huge amount of knowledge and skills and resources, but he was able to see a way of being a productive adult that combines work and passions and balances life and the need to earn a living and that uses exactly the same combination of artistic creativity and computer geekyness that he has in spades.

Mentorships for teens ... they rule! My eldest easily found music mentors within the classical world. It took much longer with ds. I'm so grateful he finally had this validating and energizing experience.

Miranda-that improvisation really is awesome. I'm a lapsed viola player (finding time to play is the thing...when I occasionally get to play nowadays, the fiddle seems to be the thing). Wonderful :-)

Right now our big thing is what to do about school. We're in the UK, and its usual and common for kids to simply not get a place at their local school. My oldest, 10, born four days before the year cut off and not a terribly mature kid in any way at all even for his age, has a place at the local school. This school is quite an academic one, but it's also very good in terms of pastoral care and has a good reputation for working with kids who struggle with reading, writing, etc. (My son has real problems with writing, and dysgraphic has been mentioned several times-90% sure he's dyslexic, though he now reads well and constantly-we'd push for an assessment purely to be able to make any necessary accommodations like typing homework/notes). The issue for us is that its not the place for him this year, its unlikely to be the place for him next year or the next....but its highly unlikely a space will come up at this school again, before he is 18. Additionally, the UK school system expects a comprehensive battery of exam passes in a range of subjects (some hard to teach for non-specialists like modern languages) at 15/16 and 17/18. HSing isn't as common in the UK as the US, and my strong hunch is that my son will want a STEM career. While it would be possible to reenter school at some point-they do have to give him a place somewhere, even if out of town-not all schools offer all subjects, and in particular it might be hard to find him a place that would offer good science and math teaching. But at the same time, my goodness, if dp and I, who have both studied math/science at degree/postgrad level, cannot fill in any gaps at this level in science, math, computing etc then that's a serious failing of the school system!

Reasons to keep him at home are strong. He's just not a mature kid, in any way. He's not especially socially mature. He's the kind of kid who likes to focus on one thing to perfection. In terms of focusing on his narrow interests, computers, engineering, robotics, he's in quite a good place in terms of the adults in the family-DP is a mathematician with a Phd in computer science and has a job which involves assessing new inventions in these areas. My brother is involved in the London Hackerspace and DP is involved in our local hackerspace. We know interesting people.

We also simply do not have a strong community of local teens and even if we did, I think my kids are moving towards wanting interest based friendships, with more in common than just being homeschooled. He has several long term friends who I hope he'll keep, but I think what he really will want is outside family mentorships in computing, robotics, electronics. I don't know of ANY teens who have found this, ANY teens who are going to hackerspace, volunteering to write the newsletter for the local astronomy club (which always wants kids to do this), I dunno. Spoke recently with one of the regular staff at our local indie games shop-I think they'd offer work experience and mentor an interested kid (ds is into his games and is playing about with game design) but although HE'd teens are often gamers, no one seems to have approached her. Even just for grunt work on the website. I think the opportunities are there but kids aren't taking them and I'm too polite to ask why...That's worrying me, basically. When I was a kid I did this stuff, walked into shops (very scared but did it) and blagged experience, wrote bad articles and found someone to publish them, illegally busked on the London underground (ok, nowadays you need an audition and license back then it was just illegal...). But at the same time...most of my same age friends were in school, not doing these things.

Its SUCH uncharted water, and with very likely no going back. If I had a kid who didn't seem to be so likely to want to pursue a career which wouldn't tend to need a university education (not just for the degree but the environment you'd get in a good STEM dept of a university) I'd be different. If I had a kid who was showing every sign of wanting to be a writer, I think I'd be far more relaxed-not that they might not change their minds, but that it would seem like an acceptable risk.

So its a difficult decision. But 11 hours a day, including homework, would be taken up with school right from the start. For a kid who gets very grumpy if he hasn't had 6 hours of reading and a good hour of physical activity each day (he can cycle, but tbh its a crazy easy flat cycle, prob about 15 mins each way and no sweat at all), I'm not sure how this would work.

I have recently started to participate in these threads and I am quite enjoying them. So interesting to read about others who are unschooling, thank you for sharing.

I enter this month with a concern for how much screen time my children are getting, it has been nagging at me for a month already. I am the type of unschooler who allows my children to direct their own learning, but I am now thinking of doing otherwise. My two oldest children spend quite a bit of time in Minecraft, they are creating their own world in which they intend to set a server to invite friends to play. They are using their creative abilities and I have no problem with this, but when they have a break it's watching TV shows:( We live where it is very cold in the winter, especially this winter, and I know when the weather changes we will be spending more time outside away from "the screen". Even my three year old turns to the TV a lot of the time right now. I am expecting our fourth child, currently in the first trimester still, which has me tired and low energy; I think is playing a factor in the screen time as it's easy to let them watch something while I rest or catch up on the housework. I believe this will change soon with the warmer weather and as I stop feeling sick and tired; I just hope I am not letting them set bad habits....relying on tv shows for down time.

We have the usual gymnastic for the girls and computer science (dd9) this month. My 9yr is also going to participate in a science workshop that takes place once a month until June, the first is the end of March. This Friday we have a homeschool group gathering, skating and gym time. Our children are looking forward to a day with their cousins during March Break, which is next week already. I am excited about our "gardening club" starting up again, more excited than the kids. We help with the volunteer garden at an Archaeology museum. We will be growing tobacco and the three sister (corn, beans, squash) garden. For March we are starting the tobacco plants indoors, but April will see us more busy!

I have a goal for this this month and it is to make time sit for leisure reading with all my children. I used to enjoy reading with my children so much and got out of the habit when our third child came, then my husband took over reading their novels with them (two oldest) before bed. I read to my 3yo (and so does my 9yo) but not often enough do we sit and read all together.

Finally, we just found out that my FIL has a brain tumor. He has been diagnosed with parkinsons about 5 years ago, but after Christmas he went into a rapid decline. He went from walking to a wheelchair in a matter of 6 weeks, he can do nothing for himself any more and his wife is doing all the care for him. My husband finally had enough of unanswered questions and got him in to see another specialist last week who discovered the tumor. They called him yesterday to say he should be in the hospital and today they are doing a more in depth MRI where we will find out more, I think if surgery is an option or how much time he has left:( My husband is an only child, it is very hard on him and I feel so helpless to help him. My mother and MIL are coming down today as my MIL desperately wants to see him. My FIL is a wonderful man, he is calm all of the time,so kind, a nature lover and photographer, and he is only in his mid sixties. I hope everything goes well but I fear the worst, I feel he is going to be taken from us before we are ready to give him up. I guess that is always the way, but when my grandma died in her 90th year is was easier to accept. Sorry to end on such a downer, hopefully I'll be back with better news...

This has been a big learning to ski year for both me and the kids, but we've had lots of difficulties with too little snow. The 5yo scraped up his chin yesterday by shooting over a snow berm onto a gravel road on skis, but still seems interested to go out with the kids ski group today (a different, easier spot), so we'll see how that goes. I hope he's not scared off too much.

The 5yo's all-consuming interest in origami has run up against the limitations of his fine motor skills, and has faded into the background a bit. Meanwhile, math is becoming more and more of an interest. He's forever talking about the different types of symmetry in different numbers and letters, different angles and the slopes they make, divisibility, etc... We got some of the Miquon books, and cuisenaire rods, and he's been enjoying playing around with them, and doing "math puzzles" from the books. He has no interest at all in doing anything in order, so he might try factoring one day, a dot-to-dot the next, then fractions, then simple addition. My only issue with these is that he often chooses to do them right before bedtime (some wiggle room, but we do have a bedtime), forcing me to either be a task master keeping him focused on the problems he's doing (I hate that), dealing with a meltdown if he has to go to bed before he finishes the puzzle (I hate that too), or letting him stay up and dealing with the consequences the next day (not any better). Of course 3yo sister wants to do math puzzles too, so she's been doing a lot of counting and playing with the rods.

So we have lots of math, but very little literature going on right now. I read aloud to them, but have yet to find a way to get the 5yo interested in listening to any fiction. He's very much an all non-fiction all the time kind of kid, so it's all planets and volcanoes and inventions and anatomy and basically no stories (the 3yo likes stories about baby animals, but big brother is not so interested in those).

We're straddling the seasons a little here, searching out spots to ski while I'm also getting geared up to start seeds for gardening. The kids say they want their own garden bed this year, and I'm curious to see if they really do, when the time comes.

mapleleaf--so sorry to hear about your FIL. Hoping for the best for him

Fillyjonk, really tough decision; I don't envy you. Is there really no hope that he'd get into your preferred school in a couple of years? Are things really likely to be a much poorer fit at the alternate school(s)? He just seems so young! Our school here is debating moving from 5 hours of instruction 5 days a week to 5 hours and 50 minutes four days a week and many parents think that's just too long a day for pre-teens. Yet in the context of UK schools that's a laughably short school day. Am I right that your school days are already 7+ hours and may get longer? Do you suppose British kids are really growing up 40% better-educated than Canadian kids thanks to all those extra hours? I doubt it. :(

mapleleaf, so sorry to hear about your FIL. Hope you get some definitive answers about treatment options and prognosis and are able to get a sense of what the future holds.

mckittre, we're getting tons of snow here this week; sorry to hear yours has been on short supply. Sadly for us the snow is not particularly useful just now as we're into a spate of extra choir performances and what's normally our discretionary time is being eaten up by the travel and performing. About the bedtime math ... could you nudge him into starting a little sooner by reminding him about the importance of getting a good sleep? I'm a parent of night-owls who have always been most intellectually productive in the evenings. We didn't have bedtimes because we usually had a fair bit of flexibility with morning wake-up times, but I sometimes encouraged a certain flow in order to keep the sleep-wake cycle from getting too out-of-sync with the rest of the world.

Fiona is almost finished her math course at school and has been thinking about what she'd like to do with the rest of the year. She has decided that she'd like to start on the next course and keep attending school for those 2-3 hours a week. Which I guess suggests the experience has been positive for her. The classes are almost entirely independent study, so she goes in with her workbook and math kit, turn on her iPod and listens to music, ignoring the other kids, does her work, and comes home. It begs the question: why does she even bother to go? But, she likes the structure of that designated time for math, and the relationship with the teacher: the accountability and also the affirmation of her skills and knowledge. She likes measuring herself against a external benchmark. And even if she finds much of the other kids' behaviour annoying, she kind of appreciates feeling like she's amongst them, sharing the experience of doing math with others. So it works, it's at the right level, and the school is happy to have her there. I wish it wasn't the 11-12 time-slot, since it tends to interfere with doing other things with our days but that's how it is.

We just completed our Term 2 review of our homeschooling with our teacher-supervisor. We had little to show. I was prepared to be hard-nosed and unschooling-radical about not fitting tidily into whatever slots he expected us to fill. But our teacher was great ... as time goes on he gets more trusting and open-minded about what we're doing. He chatted with Fiona about snowboarding and gymnastics and math and TV shows. He browsed around her photography portfolio on-line. He was able to tell us she'd done very well on the Grade 7 standardized testing (which was validating for all of us, since together we had engineered Fiona's double-grade-skip into this grade). And that was all.

Gotta go: time to scoop the older two outta school and make our fourth trip to the city in 6 days. Today is two choir rehearsals and two dance classes plus grocery shopping. It's snowing like crazy. At least I managed to fix the heat in the van!

My only issue with these is that he often chooses to do them right before bedtime (some wiggle room, but we do have a bedtime), forcing me to either be a task master keeping him focused on the problems he's doing (I hate that), dealing with a meltdown if he has to go to bed before he finishes the puzzle (I hate that too), or letting him stay up and dealing with the consequences the next day (not any better).

Our best time of the day for this stuff is also right before bed (until it isn't and woe unto us!) I've never been able to deal patiently with the collision of good mood, eager exploration, energy and the need to get kids to bed so they get enough sleep. So *I* can get enough sleep! I also have not been able to effectively to change things-- from any direction, child-led, parent-led, dictator-imposed, nothing. I guess I have been able to get into enough of a habit that it's not so traumatic when the "sun sets" and the storybooks come out. I usually ask them (when and if they are in a good mood) how many minutes they need to set the game up to continue tomorrow. Unfortunately, our house is littered with projects and games and studies set aside "for tomorrow". But it does work to get them to set things aside without tears. Mostly. DD7 has always loved to finish things, sometimes desperately needs to finish things, and that can lead to some meltdowns, even at her age.

I'm looking forward to the day when bedtimes/quiet times are not such a huge deal, when I can say "Ok, stay up as late as you want, I'm going to bed." The 100% unschooling approach to bedtime has never worked well for our family.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. "Let me see you stripped down to the bone. Let me hear you speaking just for me."

Fillyjonk, really tough decision; I don't envy you. Is there really no hope that he'd get into your preferred school in a couple of years? Are things really likely to be a much poorer fit at the alternate school(s)? He just seems so young! Our school here is debating moving from 5 hours of instruction 5 days a week to 5 hours and 50 minutes four days a week and many parents think that's just too long a day for pre-teens. Yet in the context of UK schools that's a laughably short school day. Am I right that your school days are already 7+ hours and may get longer? Do you suppose British kids are really growing up 40% better-educated than Canadian kids thanks to all those extra hours? I doubt it. :(

I had no idea that schools anywhere had a 7+ hr day! Is it true? That's a tough decision. People always say to me "how hard it must be to homeschool three children"! In my mind I think how hard it must to work with the system!!!

I had no idea that schools anywhere had a 7+ hr day! Is it true? That's a tough decision. People always say to me "how hard it must be to homeschool three children"! In my mind I think how hard it must to work with the system!!!

Not yet, not the publicly-funded schools. My SIL is prone to a bit of political hyperbole and posted something on FB that left me with the impression school days were already in the realm of 7 hours, but I checked and apparently the norm at state-funded schools is more like just-shy-of-6 hours at this point. The Education Secretary recently proposed extending school days to 9 to 10 hours and shortening holidays, which was what my SIL was ranting about. It seems his proposal is not gaining as much traction as he had hoped.

we...ll...UK schools? Our local school actually has 5 hours teaching plus an hour break for lunch. There are lots of clubs running at lunchtime, and I can't see that he wouldn't sign up for the computing club (pretty decent-teaching Pascal to the first years, for instance) and the science club. That doesn't seem too bad. When I was at school, we had a 6 1/2 hour day, plus hour lunch break. That rose to 7- 71/2 hours at around age 14 iirc. The issue is really homework, that's what adds the time IME and the amount of homework that I understand comes from this school is a bit insane. Plus he's going to struggle a lot with written work. And there's the commute which seems to be about an hour both ways, or about 10 minutes each way by car-but we only have one car which dp mainly needs for work.

All that said, I'm not in England-which is where I'm guessing you SIL probably is, Moominmamma? My mother is a secondary teacher in London and I think they do have a longer day. There are so many different kinds of school anyway, academies (magnet schools), religious schools, etc in England and I'm not totally clear how it all works.

Yep, really tricky. Genuinely have no idea what to do. If there was a thriving community of HS'd teenagers locally, and/or the ability to reenter school later, I'd be so much happier keeping him out. If he wasn't so interested in STEM subjects-meaning that a different school, which doesn't offer such breath of STEM teaching, might be fine-again, happier to take the risk. I should say that he has no really strong feelings, he actually doesn't feel he has the info to decide, he leans toward no, except that he really does want a STEM career (specifically, robotics or computing atm), this is a long term thing. There is no real issue with him trying school and leaving.

I do find this annoying about the UK and HE. Our government really makes it hard for HE'd kids to get qualifications. We normally have to pay - a LOT-for exams that schooled kids sit free, for instance, and in my town its not possible for under 18s to access most courses with any kind of funding-adult courses at the university, courses run by the council, courses run by charities with any government/council funding. Added to that that we have strict laws/guidance on adults and kids working together and adults tend to have to have a criminal record check if an under 16 yo wants to spend time with them unsupervised....its not a great situation in many ways. Certainly, its functionally very hard indeed for a kid under 16 to volunteer without a parent present, or to work. Crazy. I need to do a lot of thinking! If Gove's ideas are implemented they will, I suspect, be a disaster for HErs as he is trying, basically, to increase the amount of hours of childcare school provides so offer other things, sports, drama, etc. The problem for me is that I suspect this will mean councils no longer run as much stuff for kids through leisure centres-stuff HE'd kids can just as equally access-as it will happen through schools. We already have a situation where my kids cannot access classes in this bilingual country's non-English language because its taught in schools and so there is no provision at all to teach it outside schools. Luckily for me we live in an area not covered by these proposals but still....

Wow, Fillyjonk, that really is a tough situation to be in! How does your son feel about trying the school? It does sound like a lot of hours, for sure. I grew up in Belgium, and I remember elementary school went from 8:30 am until 3:45 pm, but we had a little more than an hour lunch break. We also did have quite a bit of homework every night, even in elementary school, for sure a lot more than my DD9 comes home with from public school here in AZ. At least once a week she has no homework at all, and very often it's 2 days during the week, plus she hardly ever has homework during the weekend! I think by 4th grade I had homework and study to do for 3 to 4 subjects every single night, plus extra during the weekend, not less. And yes, in this case I do feel like the education I got there was by far superior than what they're learning here in public school. What they do in junior colleges here (as far as math and language arts goes) we for sure had covered in high school.

Also, what I really find odd is that here there is all this crazy stressing about tests happening constantly, and it seems like all the teachers care about, or have time for, is to try and prepare the kids for all those tests. We didn't really have that much in the way of big, official tests, at least not in elementary school. We did have one at the end of 6th grade, but nobody made it such a big deal. We were just told to review as much as we could of everything we had learned over the last 6 years, and do the best we could at the test. There were more exams starting in middle school, 3 times a year. Starting in middle school we also had longer school days, from 8 until 4:15, but again, more than an hour lunch break.

Anyway, seems like March is going to be our experiment with unschooling here. DS9 is thoroughly enjoying his new freedom so far. This afternoon he asked if we could do it this way forever! I told him that I wasn't sure, that we'll just enjoy being relaxed about school at least this month, and maybe (part of) next month, while I'm preparing for surgery, and then recovering from surgery. Once that's behind us, we can evaluate and see what's next. So far, it's been a lot of music, practicing and playing his cello, and also listening to cello music on CDs and on youtube, trying to find new pieces he wants to start learning. He's working hard on 2 pieces in particular (Saint-Saens concerto no. 1 and Kol Nidrei), because he wants to make a video to try to get on the public radio show "From The Top". He also got his wish and DH agreed to let him go to a string music camp in Wichita, KS this summer. The camp is 2 weeks, but you can do just one week, and that's all DH will let us go for. I'm going with of course. He also wants to the concerto competition that they organize, so we'll go the second week. So he'll be working on that Saint-Saens concerto for some time to come. I bought him a CD that has the orchestra accompaniment (without the cello solo part), and he's been having lots of fun playing with it!

He's also really interested in photography, he has a digital camera and takes some decent pictures actually. I might see if I can find a photography class for his age group, if he's interested. He's also doing gymnastics and enjoying that. Interestingly enough he didn't want to go to our weekly homeschool play group this morning, which he normally loves. But previously it gave him a break from our structured schedule, which we now don't have anymore. This morning he said he was having too much fun to stop what he was doing to go.

Suddenly he's also reading a ton every day, whereas before it was much more of a struggle to get him to read every day. But I was trying to follow the book suggestions from our curriculum, as well as the reading in the science and history/geography textbooks. Now he's been reading about planes, World War II, Anne Frank, and Kansas (where his music camp will be), and eating it all up. He must have read at least 3 hours today!

So that's our story for now. And I'm in a much better place for it, taking it one day at a time, and not worrying if he just doesn't end up doing anything in any of his workbooks, even if it just a temporary thing. But who knows, maybe we'll both enjoy our time together so much, and maybe it will become obvious that he IS in fact learning, just in a less structured way, and we'll continue on this road.

we...ll...UK schools? Our local school actually has 5 hours teaching plus an hour break for lunch. There are lots of clubs running at lunchtime, and I can't see that he wouldn't sign up for the computing club (pretty decent-teaching Pascal to the first years, for instance) and the science club. That doesn't seem too bad. When I was at school, we had a 6 1/2 hour day, plus hour lunch break. That rose to 7- 71/2 hours at around age 14 iirc. The issue is really homework, that's what adds the time IME and the amount of homework that I understand comes from this school is a bit insane. Plus he's going to struggle a lot with written work. And there's the commute which seems to be about an hour both ways, or about 10 minutes each way by car-but we only have one car which dp mainly needs for work.

Some how I missed your son was entering high school. When I think back we would have been in school that long if you included field hockey practice or working on the yearbook. It's nice that you get to make the decision together. We have a pretty strong homeschooling community here and it seems that many of the kids end up going to high school.

Secondary school is, I think, more middle-school territory by North American standards. Age 11-15 or so, from what we would consider 5th grade. Is that correct Fillyjonk?

Miranda

In her first post, Fillyjonk mentioned her son is 10 years old. Also, I don't know how it is in the UK, but in Belgium, secondary school starts in what we call 7th grade in the US. There is lower secondary school, which is the first 3 years (so the US equivalent to 7 through 9th grade) and upper secondary school (10th through 12th grade). Not sure how it is in the UK though. But to this day (after being in the US for 18 years) I still often mistakenly think that high school starts in 10th grade here, because of the way I was used to it in Belgium (where I grew up).

:-) I actually don't know what high school is! He's 10, but will be 11 (and 4 days!) at the start of the school year. We call that secondary. Is it middle school then in the US? Our middle school is different again really, that explains a lot actually...So what's junior high?

Junior high is 7-9th grades, average ages around 12-14yo. Middle school is 5th or 6th grade to 8th grade, appr. 11-13yo. Our high school transcripts actually begin in the 9th grade, even though that grade is often part of a junior high in districts with 3-year high schools. Those districts with middle schools will have 4-year high schools. On paper, high school is always 4 years, appr. ages 14-18yo.

(This is the normal arrangement. I went to jh and hs in Las Vegas, NV, and they had an even stranger arrangement, with 6th grade being separated from either into "6th grade centers". I guess we were all that intolerable! HA! No, the truth was worse: Las Vegas was at the time heavily segregated, and so the kids from North Las Vegas got bussed into the larger, newer elementary schools in LV, except for the one year they could walk to their neighborhood schools used for 6th grade. My high school, BTW, had 3000 students and that didn't include the 9th grade!)

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. "Let me see you stripped down to the bone. Let me hear you speaking just for me."

(This is the normal arrangement. I went to jh and hs in Las Vegas, NV, and they had an even stranger arrangement, with 6th grade being separated from either into "6th grade centers". I guess we were all that intolerable! HA! No, the truth was worse: Las Vegas was at the time heavily segregated, and so the kids from North Las Vegas got bussed into the larger, newer elementary schools in LV, except for the one year they could walk to their neighborhood schools used for 6th grade. My high school, BTW, had 3000 students and that didn't include the 9th grade!)

Wow! Here in our school district middle school (or junior high, they call it the same thing here) starts in 6th grade.

What a difference from where I grew up, in a very small coastal village in Belgium. My entire school (from the first year of Kindergarten - there are 3 K years in Belgium, starting at 2.5 or 3 years old - through the last year of high school) counted around 600 students! My graduating class had less than 30 students!

My ds is Class of 2014 at a K-12 school, and his graduating class has 6 members. My middle dd's grad class would have had 1 to 3, except that she's leaving the school before then, because of that. There's small, and then there's too small.

The school here is around the size of in Miranda's town, probably smaller. Both my husband and sister in law attended when it was closer to 100 kids K-12, now it's more in the 40 to 50 range. In fact, the only thing that bothers me about not sending my oldest there next year is that it will be seen as withholding support from a community institution that really could use the extra kids. But my community mindedness isn't enough to make me swallow the rest of it.

Junior high is 7-9th grades, average ages around 12-14yo. Middle school is 5th or 6th grade to 8th grade, appr. 11-13yo. Our high school transcripts actually begin in the 9th grade, even though that grade is often part of a junior high in districts with 3-year high schools. Those districts with middle schools will have 4-year high schools. On paper, high school is always 4 years, appr. ages 14-18yo.

(This is the normal arrangement. I went to jh and hs in Las Vegas, NV, and they had an even stranger arrangement, with 6th grade being separated from either into "6th grade centers". I guess we were all that intolerable! HA! No, the truth was worse: Las Vegas was at the time heavily segregated, and so the kids from North Las Vegas got bussed into the larger, newer elementary schools in LV, except for the one year they could walk to their neighborhood schools used for 6th grade. My high school, BTW, had 3000 students and that didn't include the 9th grade!)

SweetSilver, that's about the clearest explanation I've ever had of how American schools work! Thanks! I'm kind of glad to hear its not actually that straightforward, because that explains why I couldn't get a handle on it.

Question though. This high school transcript-what does it mean? What do you need it for? Is it of relevance to getting into college, say? Does that mean that you effectively have continuous assessment for your upper teenage years and that the people assessing you are your teachers?

Huh, I thought grade levels were standard in the US. We're in the Southeast US (NC) and here primary is K-5, middle school 6-8, high school 9-12. There are a few K-8 schools but I believe they are all private schools.

Question though. This high school transcript-what does it mean? What do you need it for? Is it of relevance to getting into college, say? Does that mean that you effectively have continuous assessment for your upper teenage years and that the people assessing you are your teachers?

Basically, yes. Transcripts are a key part of getting into college, and it is often a question amongst homeschoolers how to create a homeschooling transcript for admission. Colleges and universities create their own admissions requirements, but transcripts and tests scores, like the SAT, are typical. Our "community colleges" (what were once called "junior colleges") have more lax requirements, since they often serve high school students, older students and drop-outs and are often a means to build up a good academic record for later admission to a university.

(Language note: in the US we say "going to college" instead of "university", which for us is a noun that always takes an article as in "a university". This is one of those places where Canadian English is more like British English than American.)

Huh, I thought grade levels were standard in the US. We're in the Southeast US (NC) and here primary is K-5, middle school 6-8, high school 9-12. There are a few K-8 schools but I believe they are all private schools.

I think the grade levels are standard, but where they are physically grouped is not. My current district has 250 students K-12, and they are divided into 2 groups by building, 3 groups by "school", if that makes sense. The middle school and high school are in the same building. I also know elementary schools that only have K-3.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. "Let me see you stripped down to the bone. Let me hear you speaking just for me."

We are still trying to find our footing. I am still trying to find *my* footing. Our unschooling still seems to be centered around the girls' play together, and it's often frustration and tears for everyone. But they have loads of fun as well, and I'm impressed the way they can work things out sometimes.

Still. They have so many amazing ideas. I admit, I'm not as responsive as I could be. I know that. The house is a mess, I don't get the ingredients they need for something immediately and we sort of all forget about it. They often ask for my help at the worst times (dinner, 30 minutes before we are to be out the door, 5 minutes before bedtime). Then, when I am ready and willing to help, they don't want to for whatever reason and it's not just when they are having fun.

Sigh. I know they are young yet. But I was thinking we'd be doing projects more. I was thinking they'd be more into learning to knit, or whatever. (Though they've been interested in sewing little projects some). They certainly want to do those things. Oh, right, I just remembered to look up whittling so I have an idea of where to start. DD1 wants to go fishing and I can't help her and I've failed at finding someone in the community to help us. All these grand ideas. All these postponements. Even the Brownie badges, sitting, waiting to be earned. 5 easy steps. We haven't even started.

It does not help that I am not very efficient with my time. But it's not all my fault, and it might not even be a problem at all. But I'm not in synch with the girls, and I want to be.

I keep thinking that a greater focus on projects will help keep the peace a little better. I am a strong believer in the power of skills to increase confidence and self-worth. It could be that I have battled with those myself, and it's the skills I have honed that help me step back and think "Wow!" So when I see the difficulties we have as a family, increasing skills is *one* of my go-to suggestions. Creation. It's so amazingly powerful.

DD1 is just learning to jump rope. At 9yo I feel it was late, but then I was a school kid with a jump rope out at every recess for as long as I can remember. Once she got the basic idea (big hop, little hop) it just took a day of playing with it for her to get a rhythm. I showed her the one-hop jumps to get the heart pumping.

We've been doing cookie sales. Yesterday I did a booth with my coleader, the first I've shared with someone since I have the 2 girls already. I did not like it. First, she was much more persistent about getting the girls to figure out the change, which prompted the customers to do the same. When I did it by myself, I just had a few customers who asked the girls to figure the change, and that didn't seem so bad. But this booth it was coming at them from all sides. Ack! Sometimes hanging out with school families can be like driving to Canada. Everything seems the same, but then suddenly it's not. (Tongue-in-cheek, that was not really a great example, I just thought it was funny. I really do love gravy on my fries! Better than tartar sauce, that peculiarly-Seattle combination, but personally I like it when my lemon juice dribbles down onto my fries from the fish. And, ohmy, Ivar's has this garlicky vinegar...... ...... and that metaphor is completely wasted and now I'm dreaming of fish and chips.)

Where was I before I got sidetracked?

Never mind.

Enjoying a lazy day at home today. The US just did it's time change and we always take longer to adjust because we simply don't need to. We will read another chapter of Prisoner of Azkaban (fun reading it again when we know the story! It's my favorite of the series.) DD1 does want to start photographing her chickens to work on her 4-H public presentation. Which kind of goes counter to what I just complained about, doesn't it? She does get motivated for some things. She loves being in front of people--fair, presentations, cookie sales, etc. I'm thinking she will need a digital projector to do this presentation well. I need to get busy on seeing what's out there. Her subject is called "Pickin' a Chicken for Fair", all about assessing which are good candidates for showing and we'll use our flock for examples, but all ours are hatchery stock so we will need some images from outside sources.

Yay! The sun is showing its face and the rain has stopped. Rivers and creeks are full to the brim and making their usual floods, much later in the year than usual. But it's been a boon for frogs and for migrating birds to have the waters so high. We live in a rural area, so there are plenty of shrubs and trees in the floodplain that create a great habitat when flooded. We are seeing so many ducks and geese and swans, it's amazing. And, since the floods are not out of the bounds of the typical areas, no one's houses are being flooded and the only inconvenience seems to be some low-lying roads. Most roads are raised up above the landscape, but in a few places, they dip down.

Oh, this has become a long post, but I haven't checked in for a while.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. "Let me see you stripped down to the bone. Let me hear you speaking just for me."

As soon as I posted that, things have been better already. This morning at least. After 3 hrs of watching River Monsters on the tube, dd1 wanted to watch some more, and I told her that she should probably do something to get her blood moving instead. She balked at first, but after I told her it wasn't an order, just telling her what I thought would be best, she remembered her jump rope. After she was done jump roping, I reminded her she had wanted to take photos of our flock. I put an empty card in the camera, she gathered her notes and off they went outside to start. Now they are washing chicken feet to do the "water test" portion of the project (not warm enough to give them full-on baths before the project due date.)

After I did some quick research into whittling and soap carving online, and reserving a couple of books, I posted a request on our homeschool FB page for any fishing families who might want to adopt us for the season. Then I went outside to clean out the car, which looks as though we have been living in it for a month.

Phew! Feeling a little better already! We have to leave around 3:30 for gymnastics today, but it looks like a warm sunnyish day for playing outside, throwing open the windows of the house and getting some chores done.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. "Let me see you stripped down to the bone. Let me hear you speaking just for me."

We're just happy that the sun is starting to shine more and that it is getting marginally warmer. DS(5) is out in the yard creating projects with hammer, nails, wood and glue gun. We're slowly starting to do some more spring/summery things like swimming and playing more in the parks.

After a handful of spring-like days, we're getting more wet snow and sleet today. While I like winter a lot, I prefer a clean and short transition to proper spring: I hate the in-between times when there's dirty half-frozen slush on the ground that's amenable to neither skiing nor hiking. Also I slid the van off the driveway this morning, bouncing around in steep ice ruts lubricated with slush: got it out but it was the waste of an hour digging and sanding and digging. Sadly this in-between season can go on for up to a couple of months. Fiona is now getting 7 hours a week of indoor physical activity what with various dance and gymnastics classes so I guess she's good from a physical activity standpoint, but we still miss having enjoyable ready access to the forests and trails. We're trying to poke into the woods from time to time, sinking thigh deep in the corn snow, to take photos to continue with our photo-a-day challenge, but I ache for a nice long trail run or ski. She is dreaming of the alpine hikes she wants to do come July.

The photo challenge is encouraging her to take more interest in what tends to get taken for granted around us: the splash of meltwater, the stark beauty of a spire of rock, the texture of lichens and mosses, the species and colouration of various trees, shrubs and birds -- even when the world is early-spring dull and grey. While I expected she'd learn a fair bit about photography, optics, digital media editing, and the natural world through this photo challenge, I'm most delighted by another lesson she seems to be learning: that if she approaches the world with the right attitude, she can find beauty and interest almost anywhere. During January she'd occasionally moan that she couldn't think of anything "good" to take a picture of to meet the day's challenge. Now she knows she can find a photo almost anywhere if she turns on her creative eye. Such a powerful lesson, that beauty and interest is in the eye of the beholder!

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll also confess that it seems like she's doing very little else these days, spending hours a day lying on her bed reading or mainlining TV shows. Her structured activities seem to be serving her well, but they're about all she wants to do. My middle kids laugh and tell me she's just entering the early-teen 18-month phase of being a useless lump a year or so early. I suppose they're probably right: she's been precocious in most other things, why not in the realm of aimlessness as well?